Ask HN: Do antivirus companies create viruses to run their bussiness?

4 points by kashif_hn 13 years ago | 7 comments

I have heard that most of the viruses found on internet are produced by the antivirus companies. How far this statement is true?

DrWhax 13 years ago |

Anti-virus does some basic heuristics and signature checking, and honestly, they are doing a pretty bad job at detecting virusses or overlooking them (Flame for example, or the recent Adobe CA compromise)

Mikko Hypponen from F-secure, a Finnish anti-virus company, only had the guts to admit it, you can read the article here; http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/06/internet-security-f...

theslay 13 years ago |

I doubt that. I say this because there are always people who want to do something crazy(like create a virus) just to exploit an OS/app or prove how good they are. Some create malware to infect pcs so they can add to their botnets which could be sold or used for themselves.. So these antivirus companies are just trying to help out.

freework 13 years ago | |

Isn't that a nieve way of thinking? I don't think there is any hard evidence that virus companies fund virus creation, but it would make a lot of sense if they did. Anti-virus companies have a lot to gain by a vibrant virus ecosystem.

cedricd 13 years ago |

No way. Imagine if they got caught. It'd kill their entire company. How is a little bit of marketing going to be worth that risk? It's almost like asking 'Why don't auto body shops remove stop signs in their area to get more business'?

cedricd 13 years ago | |

Actually better yet: Why don't doctors spread the flu intentionally?

Security companies are also probably staffed by people who genuinely want to stop malware. Protecting people is probably part of their motivation to go to work.

kombinatorics 13 years ago |

Why not? I wouldn't be surprised if they created complex viruses to cause harm to other security software, but their own.

smartwater 13 years ago |

They don't need to, there are plenty of people doing it for them.